South Street on the south from Broad Street east to the Delaware River, and the Ninth covers the area west of Broad Street between South and Poplar to the Schuylkill River. Its command is generally regarded as a stepping- stone to higher rank; both Chief Wohl and Chief Coughlin had in the past commanded the Central District.
“Barbara, this is Denny Coughlin,” Chief Coughlin said into the telephone. “I hate to bother you at home, but I have to speak to Greg.”
Chief Wohl leaned forward from his white leather armchair, picked up a bottle of Bushmills Irish whiskey, and generously replenished the glass in front of Denny Coughlin.
“Greg? Denny. Sorry to bother you at home with this, but I didn’t want to take the chance of missing you in the morning. We need you, the Commanding Officer of the Sixth, Sy Meyer, a plainclothesman of his named Palmerston, and a Sixth District uniform named Crater at Peter Wohl’s office at eight tomorrow morning.”
“What’s going on, Denny?” Inspector Sawyer inquired, loudly enough so that Chief Wohl and his son could hear.
“There was an incident,” Coughlin began, visibly uncomfortable with having to lie, “involving somebody who had Jerry Carlucci’s unlisted number. He wants a report from me by noon tomorrow. I figured Wohl’s office was the best place to get everybody together as quietly as possible.”
“An incident? What kind of an incident?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t hear about it myself until I saw the Mayor tonight. I guess we’ll all find out tomorrow.” He paused. “Greg, I probably don’t have to tell you this, but don’t start your own investigation tonight, OK?”
“Jesus Christ! I haven’t heard a goddamned thing.”
“Don’t feel bad, neither did I. Eight o’clock, Greg.”
“I’ll be there,” Inspector Sawyer said.
“Good night, Greg.”
“Good night, Denny.”
Coughlin put the telephone back in its cradle and picked up his drink.
“Why the hell is my conscience bothering me?” he asked.
“It shouldn’t,” Chief Wohl said. “Not your conscience.”
Officer Charles F. Crater, who lived with his wife Joanne and their two children (Angela, three, and Charles, Jr., eighteen months) in a row house at the 6200 block of Crafton Street in the Mayfair section of Philadelphia, was asleep at 7:15 a.m. when Corporal George T. Peterson of the Sixth District telephoned his home and asked to speak to him.
Mrs. Crater told Corporal Peterson that her husband had worked the four-to-twelve tour and it had been after two when he got home.
“I know, but something has come up, and I have to talk to him,” Corporal Peterson replied. “It’s important, Mrs. Crater.”
Two minutes later, sleepy-eyed, dressed in a cotton bathrobe under which it could be seen that he had been sleeping in his underwear, Officer Crater picked up the telephone.
“What’s up?” he asked.
“Charley, do you know where Special Operations Headquarters is?”
“Frankford and Castor?”
“Right. Be there at eight o’clock. See the Sergeant.”
“Jesus,” Crater said, looking at his watch. “It’s quarter after seven. What’s going on?”
“Wait a minute,” Corporal Peterson said. “Charley, the Sergeant says to send a car for you. Be waiting when it gets there.”
“What’s going on?”
“Hold it a minute, Charley,” Corporal Peterson said.
Sergeant Mario Delacroce came on the line.
“Crater, you didn’t get this from me,” he said. “All I know is that we got a call from Central Division saying to have you at Special Operations at eight this morning. What I hear is that Special Operations has got some operation coming off on your beat, and they want to talk to you.”
“What kind of an operation?”
“Charley, Central Division don’t confide in me, they just tell me what they want done. There’ll be a car at your house in fifteen minutes. Be waiting for it. You want a little advice, put on a clean uniform and have a fresh shave.”
“Right,” Charley Crater said.
He put the telephone back in its cradle.
“What was that all about?” Joanne Crater asked, concern in her voice.
“Ah, those goddamned Special Operations hotshots are running some kind of operation on my beat, and they want to talk to me,” Charley said.
“Talk to you about what?”
“Who knows?” Charley said. “They think their shit don’t stink.”
“I really wish you’d clean up your language, Charley.”
“Sorry,” he said. “Honey, I got to catch a quick shave and get dressed. Have I got a fresh uniform?”
“Yeah, there’s one I picked up yesterday.”
As he went up the stairs to his bedroom, Officer Crater had a very unpleasant thought: Maybe it has something to do with…Nah, if it was something like that, I’d have been told, before I went off last night, to report to Internal Affairs.
But what the hell does Special Operations want to ask me about?
Nine months before, a building contractor from McKeesport, Pennsylvania, had telephoned the Eastern Pennsylvania Executive Escort Service, saying the service had been recommended to him by a client of the service. After first ascertaining that the building contractor did indeed know the client, and that he understood the price structure, Mrs. Osadchy dispatched to Room 517 of the Benjamin Franklin Hotel one of her associates, who happened to be an employee of the Philadelphia Savings Fund Society, whose husband had deserted her and their two children, and who worked on an irregular basis for the Eastern Pennsylvania Executive Escort Service to augment her income.
When she reached the building contractor’s room, it was evident to her that he was very drunk, and when his behavior was unacceptably crude, she attempted to leave. The building contractor thereupon punched her in the face. She screamed, attracting the attention of the occupants of the adjacent room, who called hotel security.
The on-duty hotel security officer, a former police officer, was contacted as he stood on the sidewalk, chatting with Officer Charles F. Crater, of the Sixth District, who was walking his beat.
Officer Crater, ignoring the hotel security officer’s argument that he could deal with the situation alone, accompanied him to the building contractor’s room, where they found the building contractor somewhat aghast at the damage he had done to the face of the lady from the Eastern Pennsylvania Executive Escort Service, and the lady herself in the bathroom, trying to stanch the flow of blood from her mouth and nose, so that she could leave the premises without attracting horrified attention to herself.
The lady did not look like what Officer Crater believed hookers should look like. She was weeping. She told Officer Crater that her name was Marianne Connelly, and that her husband had deserted her and their two children, and that she had to do this to put food in their mouths. He believed her. She told him that if anyone at the Philadelphia Savings Fund Society heard about this, she would be fired, and then she didn’t know what she would do. He believed her.
The building contractor said that he didn’t know what had come over him, that he was a family man with children, and if this ever got back to McKeesport, he would lose his family and probably his business.
The hotel security officer suggested to Officer Crater that no real good would come from arresting the building contractor, since there were no witnesses to the assault, and the lady from the Eastern Pennsylvania Executive Escort Service wouldn’t humiliate herself, and set herself up to surely get fired, by going to court to testify against him.
What harm would there be, the hotel security officer argued, if they settled this bad situation right here and now? The building contractor would give the lady from the Eastern Pennsylvania Executive Escort Service money, enough not only to pay for her medical bills and the damage to her clothing, but to compensate her for what the sonofabitch had done to her.
